Featured Startup Pitch: Led by a father and son founding team, Printware wants to eliminate the hassle of printer management for IT professionals

ELEVATOR PITCH

We help overworked enterprise IT professionals get the print management monkey off their backs, drastically reduce the cost of printing on their network and local printers, and virtually eliminate the time needed to manage printers, all from their smartphone—even if they hate dealing with printers, printer users, or managed print providers.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

At its core, Printware is an app that makes it easy to order toner for your printer.

For the printer user in a business setting, getting printer service and supplies is a hassle. For the IT professionals responsible for managing those printers, getting supplies and support is a hassle. Printware solves this daily business pain for both.

Our mission: The right toner to the right person for the right printer…every time!

Targeting a $145 billion market

Less than two years after the conception, Printware is an end-to-end solution for a costly problem affecting a $145 billion dollar print management and supplies industry.

Printware eliminates over $11 billion in wasted toner expense

Service providers can’t cost-effectively manage printers and supplies accurately so they pad their clients’ toner supply with ten-to-40 percent more supplies than needed. This excess in the system negatively affects profitability. The extra supplies mask provider inefficiency, yet in the North American and European market alone, add over $11 billion in expense that is nearly impossible to recover or eliminate. Printware solves this $11 billion dollar problem while providing an outstanding user experience.

Solving a $50 billion theft problem and environmental impact

When these supplies sit for years and are subsequently thrown away, this creates waste that is not environmentally friendly. In addition, an added bonus feature of Printware is that it puts an end to toner theft—the biggest chunk of the $50 billion office supplies theft problem. Opportunistic white-collar thieves don’t steal paper clips; they steal toner. These thieves are stealing from hospitals, corporations and local governments. When an organization uses Printware, it is impossible to be victimized by toner theft.

FOUNDER’S STORY

When I was 15 years old, I was standing in front of a printer at school and it ran out of toner. The teacher told me about the time consuming process it takes to get more ink—almost two weeks for it to be delivered, which I found to be unacceptable. So I went home, hopped on my Mac, and only fifteen days later, I walked out of my room with a fully-functional MVP of Printware, all before I had finished my freshman year of high school. I had never written a line of code before.

Nine months later, I got my first round of Seed funding, a week after I turned 16. In less than two years, we’ve successfully built full production-scale iOS and Android apps, as well as a backend management platform—in the midst of all this I still had time to go to my junior prom.

This isn’t the story of another kid building a silly little app, but the story of a young entrepreneur solving billion-dollar problems.

The best part? My father is my cofounder. We’ve been building this company together for almost two years now, and it’s been the best experience working together and bonding over our love for business and technology.

MARKETING/PROMOTION STRATEGY

Open access, freemium model for basic print management using Printware.

An ascension model that provides two higher levels of features and a device management platform for a monthly subscription and per-device costs.

We are also exploring market exclusives for the B2B service provider and VAR channels that would use Printware as a value-added service.

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

IDC defines the 2014 North American and European printer supplies market as $110 billion. The managed print services market is $35 billion, giving us a combined $145 billion market opportunity.

Printware addresses both markets, and our initial three-year revenue goal is a one percent penetration of the supplies market, or $1.1 billion, and a 2.5 percent penetration of the managed print services market, or $875 million. This would put Printware at the $2 billion revenue mark.

DIFFERENTIATORS VS COMPETITION

While there are no direct competitors to Printware, the current industry offering to alleviate these problems is to simply install network sniffing software that is supposed to automatically report printer problems on their clients’ network. It is an unreliable, device-focused and an incomplete solution to the problem of managing an entire fleet of printers in multiple locations.

Although this seems like an easy fix, it is far from complete or secure. The current state of the industry offers nothing for the end user. We’re based in Washington, D.C., so we are all too familiar with the increasing level of compliance and security needed in organizations of any size. Installing non-secure and unreliable software on a client’s network is increasingly not an option.

By offering a brand, device, and program-agnostic platform that requires no sensitive data to be shared, Printware is not only an attractive option, but also the only one.

Printware is scalable, secure, easily deployed, and offers value for the end user, IT professional, and the stakeholders in your organization.

Print management made easy!

BUSINESS MODEL

Three-sided business model:

Freemium

Entry level, monetized through partnership commissions for toner sales we direct to our distribution partners.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)

Premium subscription services with an ascension model.

XaaS

Full-spectrum global print ecosystem management is monetized through sales of bundled services and products.

CURRENT NEEDS

We are currently seeking $250,000 to be used for initial sales and support costs. The core and main features of our product were bootstrapped and accomplished with our Seed funding, leaving further rounds open for what really matters: Growth.

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HEADQUARTERS: Washington, DC